Youth preview: Stags vs Grimsby

Mansfield Town’s youth team host Grimsby Town in Saturday’s Football League Youth Alliance fixture (11am kick-off).

It will be the first of a home double-header for John Dempster’s youngsters who will be aiming for their third consecutive win.

The Stags are in fine form having only lost three league fixtures so far this season and climbed into second position with a 2-1 victory over Oldham Athletic in Greater Manchester two weeks ago. The Yellows are currently joint top with Notts County on 21 points from 11 matches played in the 2015-16 campaign.

Dempster does have some injury concerns heading into their next batch of fixtures. Mansfield will be without Surafel Behailu for the next 6-8 weeks with a broken collarbone, while Tyler Johal is out for two-three weeks with a hamstring strain. Long term absentees Tom Slone, Adam Bishop and Corbin Shires are also still unavailable for selection.

Strugglers Grimsby Town are bottom of the league with only one point gained from the campaign so far. Their slender 1-0 loss to Bradford City was their ninth league defeat and Mansfield will be hoping to pounce on the poor form of Alan Lamb’s men to claim top spot.

The two sides have met once in the current season in the Football League Youth Alliance Cup competition, in a game which Mansfield ran out penalty shoot-out winners after the tie finished 1-1 after 90 minutes, with Ellis Ogle getting the Yellows’ goal.

It went straight to penalties and Stags’ goalkeeper Sam Wilson was the hero as he saved two spot-kicks to send his side through to the next stage of the competition.